Head First Web Design [Paperback]

Ethan Watrall (Author), Jeff Siarto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0596520301 | ISBN-13: 978-0596520304 | Edition: 1

Want to know how to make your pages look beautiful, communicate your message effectively, guide visitors through your website with ease, and get everything approved by the accessibility and usability police at the same time? Head First Web Design is your ticket to mastering all of these complex topics, and understanding what's really going on in the world of web design.

Whether you're building a personal blog or a corporate website, there's a lot more to web design than div's and CSS selectors, but what do you really need to know? With this book, you'll learn the secrets of designing effective, user-friendly sites, from customer requirements to hand-drawn storyboards all the way to finished HTML and CSS creations that offer an unforgettable online presence.

The revised two-color edition of this book includes a free online version of the chapter on web color. You can easily access this chapter at Oreilly.com once you register your book.

Your time is way too valuable to waste struggling with new concepts. Using the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory learning experience, Head First Web Design uses a visually rich format specifically designed to take advantage of the way your brain really works.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ethan Watrall is a professor at Michigan State University where, among other things, he teaches user centered design, interactive design, interactive storytelling, game design, and game studies. He has also written several books on web and interactive design. His digital alter ego can be found at http://www.captainprimate.com

Jeff Siarto is a Web and User Experience designer living in Chicago. He is the founder of Siarto Labs, a small design company and co-founder of Loudpixel, a consultancy specializing in web development and online learning. Jeff was a student of the standards-based web design movement and writes articles and tutorials aimed at helping new web designers get started in the craft.

Product Details

• Paperback: 500 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (December 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596520301
• ISBN-13: 978-0596520304
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #145,954 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent - but watch the typos April 7, 2009

By M. Duffield

Format:Paperback

As a member of its target audience, I found this to be a tremendous book. It's perfect for web developers who know (X)HTML and CSS but are clueless when it comes to the design process itself. The only thing to beware of is the large number of errors that should have been caught in the editing process.

I do a decent amount of PHP/MySQL and Javascript/AJAX work, so I have to already know how HTML & CSS operate. I don't need to be told what a div element is, or what a style declaration looks like. I am the least creative person on the planet, though, and this book feels like it was written specifically for me. I can't think of higher praise than that. It takes you through the process of building a site - not just what a good webpage looks like, but how a whole site is structured and fits together and ways to make that come alive through design. I never felt confused, but never felt like the authors were moving too slowly, either.

This is my third book by Head First (I also have the HTML and AJAX books), so I already knew that I liked the Head First writing style - perhaps a little light on technical side, but the lessons get driven home. The reader simply retains material from these books, and that is tough to find in most technical books on the market.

Again, the only thing to watch out for is the sloppy editing; there were a few too many editing errors for my taste. I still gave the book five stars, though, because it was just that good.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally A Web Design Book For The Entire Process February 13, 2009

By Ira Laefsky VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Head First Web Design is a invaluable tool in planning and building web sites and follows the excellent pedagogical principles of other books
in the Head First series. It is also unique in teaching the entire life cycle of building a usable, information-rich, beautiful, navigable, and accessible web site, and not being confined to illustrating the graphical layout of beautiful web pages. It illustrates, the sketching, information design, navigation, and customer interaction issues involved in developing a sophisticated, content-filled web site and prepares the developer to perform a well-managed design and implementation process. The guide does assume that the prospective web designer have familiarity with HTML, XHTML, and CSS, but that is an entirely reasonable assumption for any web designer and is well served by the HTML/XHTML volume in the Head First Series. This is an excellent and most necessary book for the design of sophisticated information architectures, and usable beautiful web sites that serve both the user and the organization that commissioned them.
--Ira Laefsky

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid addition to an already strong series of books April 20, 2009

By S. Wichmann

Format:Paperback

Don't let the cover deter you... there's a wealth of knowledge beneath it. As a somewhat practiced web-developer, I found this book to be quite a fresh and at times rather humorous approach to a subject many of us tend to marginalize in our work: the design process. From devising color schemes to navigation and content hierarchies, the book covers a lot ground and contains some pretty good exercises (though none too technical) for both novice and experienced web designers/developers. Naturally, it does a great job of illustrating how implementing good design practices in your work will translate into (and improve) your coding. I particularly found the chapter on Accessibility to be rather useful, as it is another thing a lot of us tend to forget about when creating websites...On that count, I am guilty as charged.